


You Will Be Aware of an Absence, Growing Beside You Like a Tree

by stella_bella



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Dubious Consent, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-14
Updated: 2014-01-14
Packaged: 2018-01-08 18:48:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1136149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stella_bella/pseuds/stella_bella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the disastrous attack on New York City, Loki is brought home to Asgard and imprisoned, awaiting judgment by the Allfather.  Thor visits, of course.  AU after the events of The Avengers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Will Be Aware of an Absence, Growing Beside You Like a Tree

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the poem "For a Fatherless Son" by Sylvia Plath. Please excuse all errors in regards to Marvel canon and established Norse mythology - this is not meant to conform to either and is just for fun.

PART I  
Thor comes to him at night, when the sun no longer dims the constellations that spiral above, hypnotic in their cold and distant splendor.

Loki wakes suddenly to a hand on his back, thick calloused fingers digging in along the ridge of his spine. The initial flare of panic recedes, dulled by resignation and expectation, and the bed shifts, dips under the weight of the intruder.

He lets his muscles fall pliant, and listens to Thor breathe behind him. A few moments pass while the stars wheel overhead, and somewhere, according to the laws of physics and probability and time, one explodes with breathtaking splendor.

Thor’s breath is uneven, rapid inhale and held-off exhale, and the only point of contact is his hand on Loki’s back, his fingers pressing down through layers of skin and muscle and bone, through life and heartbeat and down into the depths of the world below. He doesn’t need Mjölnir for this.

He hesitates, and Loki wonders if he hates himself for this. If he tries not to do it, every time, and still ends up here, in this strange cuckoo’s nest, in a traitor’s bed in a prison cell.

He moves then, slides up and over, hands spreading over the expanse of pale skin and knobby bone, sliding up to encircle narrow wrists and then tighten. “Don’t think to fool me, brother. I know you do not sleep.”

Loki smiles into the pillow, a concealed icy slash. “I never sleep, _brother_.”

He’s rewarded by sharp teeth, a spike of pain to his shoulder, and the full weight of Thor pressing him into the furs. “Good.” 

Every time, he tries to distance himself, to let his mind float untethered out of the diamond-barred window and into the sky, let it mingle with the stars and their timeless indifference, they who have watched over so much unseeing. It never works.

Thor keeps him bound, drags him back with hands bruising his hips, his wrists, his throat. His body burns where they meet, and he catalogues the way their skin looks in the stripes of starlight; Thor’s rich gold, his own pale and stretched, bluish in the shadows. He notes reproachfully as his skin warms without consent under his brother’s hands, with their careful touch; the way his hair clings to his neck with sweat, the way his body arches unwilling, hands searching for futile anchors in the sheets.

He cannot understand the way his body opens, the sounds that tear themselves unbidden from his throat. Thor reaches underneath with arms like bands of iron and hauls him up, back to chest and helpless. He feels the heartbeat at his shoulder, the slippery sheen of sweat; feels Thor tip his head back and leave his marks where they will not be seen. Feels hands grip his hips, his ribs, fingers tracing patterns in the beads of sweat. He feels this, and cannot be elsewhere, maybe doesn't even want to, and his eyes shut tight, pupils dilated in the dark as he lets himself fall backwards into oblivion, lets Thor catch him and push back harder. He feels his own hand, distantly and despite himself, come up to grip the blond tangles so close to his own dark hair, feels himself pull Thor downwards in a mute, desperate plea, and hates himself for it.

That’s what makes Thor come undone every time, the surrender masquerading as desire, and Loki follows after, because he has lived his whole life as a shadow, as a follower, and however hateful it may be, it still is the first, primal instinct.

He collapses into the bed, soaked with sweat and the aftermath of lust, and feels the tendrils of exhaustion wrapping manacles around his mind. Thor’s hand is on his back, still, gentle now and warmer than his own cooling flesh. He catalogues the slowing of his breaths and the steadying of his heartbeat, and thinks, _I despise you_.

The thought sustains him, nourishes better than Valhallan mead, brighter than the closest star cluster, and its warmth follows him down into sleep.

 

PART II  
The punishment for treason is death.

There are other charges: attempted murder, attempted genocide, willful deception, usurpation of power, but those are only face cards to the ace of treason. It’s a drumbeat, a steady pulse, _betrayer liar death-dealer_ , and the rhythm drives him to make endless circuits of his cell, clockwise and anticlockwise, over and over, until the world is nine square meters of stone and mortar and the scent of iron and dust.

The punishment for treason is death.

By beheading. A public ceremony, on his knees and cowed, title, rank, honour, stripped from him like the armour he once wore with such pride. _Odin’s son_. Reading of the charges, loud and slow and solemn, and knowing that if he raised his stubborn eyes from the inlaid tile he would see the faces of the people he once knew as family, as friends. The only people he knows in the world, their faces hardened and distant, no mercy. _Laufey’s son_.

The punishment for treason is death.

But he is a demigod, a sometime frost giant, dweller on the throne of immortality and an Aesir by right if not by blood, and so he cannot die.

The punishment for treason is death.

But death is not an option. So they will choose banishment. Eternal exile, lost to the untamed wilds of some unknown realm and forbidden to return. He will be lost to them, and they to him, and his name will be heard no more in the halls of Asgard. There will be no mourning, no memorial pyre, and even though the lives of the gods are timeless, and still the songs are sung of heroes older than the vault of the sky, he alone among them will not be remembered.

Death. A living death.

Loki paces, and ponders, and deep into the night it comes to him that he would prefer to die.

 

PART III  
Thor comes for him at night.

Loki knows he is there, though he made no sound of his arrival, and he keeps as far away as the cell permits. The silence stretches thin, and years pass on worlds elsewhere. Loki keeps his eyes on the uneven stone mere finger’s breadth away, and waits it out.

He can feel his brother, can see him in his mind’s eye, half in shadow and barred with starlight, tall and strong and silent, the Hammer of the Gods. He wonders how he himself appears, face to the wall and no armour to catch the blue-white light through the window, to gleam with understated power and promise, just skin and cloth and damnation.

Thor breaks first, his voice so soft that it doesn’t register at first.

“They will come for you in the morning, to face justice in the Great Hall.”

Loki says nothing; he knows, he knew from the moment Thor came to him but not all the way, a careful distance between the righteous and the sinner. _It is certain now, I am ended, and he does not want the touch of the condemned_. Bitter and sweet all at once, and his mouth trembles in a smile that makes a mockery of the name, that slips away and leaves him feeling emptier than before.

“Will you do nothing?” There is desperation in his brother’s voice, quiet in volume but it rings between them nonetheless, fading ripples in a pond. Loki frowns at the wall, exasperation overriding uncertainty.

“What would you have me do? I have committed treason, and a thousand other crimes besides. Even you could not save me now.” He thrills to the rapier thrust; Thor was always the battle-axe and the broadsword, but Loki learned early on that while smaller, sharper weapons do not kill, they leave wounds which fester and spread and poison slowly.

“I could not save you because you would not _let_ me.” Anger, sudden crack of a whip, and Thor crosses the distance between them like it does not contain an infinity of unsaid, unsayable, things. He is close, so close that Loki can feel the heat radiating off of him, a burning golden sun whose light he was ever only supposed to reflect.

“ _Why_ would you not let me save you? Your mad dreams, your wild ambition, what did they--”

He breaks off, and Loki hears him breathe out harshly. He pictures him turning his face away, arms useless at his sides.

He rolls to face Thor, eyes glittering under lowered lids. “What did they offer that you could not? Oh ho, dear brother. You flatter yourself overmuch. Sentiment, remember?”

He stands, slides to the floor and waits for Thor to flinch back, away, from the doomed twisted monster he is, the yawning abyss that wears him as a mask.

“I am not troubled by your petty concerns. I wanted _power_ , I wanted _freedom_ , and I sought them myself when they were not forthcoming. Some of us do not have our every whims catered to like spoiled children.”

Blue eyes snap to his, narrowed slivers of ice.

“What do you know of freedom?”

Loki leans in, a test and a dare, noses close enough to touch but not quite there, and the air between them thickens like the calm before the storm. Lightning flashes in Thor’s eyes.

“They know best who do not have.”

It is a taunt, and a temptation, and Loki knows his brother well.

He is prepared for the crushing grip, for the hand that winds itself into his hair, strands catching on the metal wrist guards. He is prepared for the other that finds his hip, nails leaving ragged crescents on the bone itself. He is not prepared for the pause.

Thor tips his head back, and Loki cannot conceal a slight wince at the pressure on his scalp, his stretched throat. He closes his eyes and feels warm breath on his lips, his cheek, the sudden jolt of skin on skin. Thor presses a hot, open-mouthed kiss to his neck, and mutters, “Let me.”

The words sink into his flesh, worm their heated way through his icy veins.

“Let me save you.”

He opens his eyes, and Thor is there, shapeless and out of focus, too close and too far at the same time, and this time he does not move, this time he lets Loki close the distance, and they meet with a noise like thunder.

Afterwards, Loki lies still and breathless, eyes on the same patch of wall but thoughts on the world beyond. He can feel Thor at his back, feel the heavy hand which rises and falls with each precious, stolen breath. Words swirl up from within, flushed out like leaves on a storm-swollen river.

“You owe me nothing. And I would take nothing that you would offer.”

They fall into the silence, swallowed up until he wonders if he even spoke at all. Thor raises himself from the bed and pads to the door. Loki can hear him thinking, but not on what his thoughts touch. He thinks to himself, _I do not want you here_.

Thor speaks long after Loki believes him gone.

“That is the problem. You think to hold yourself apart, but you are not and never have been. We are the same.”

“No we are not.” Loki spits, furious beyond measure and not quite sure why. “You are nothing like me; you are an arrogant, posturing _child_ who thinks himself a god and a king.” The sharpest barbs he has, and they fly like arrows even as he tenses for the return hammer-swing.

It doesn’t come. Thor speaks from the other side of the bars, like an afterthought.

“Do you speak of me or of yourself?”

He is gone for real, and Loki spends another sleepless night searching for an answer which doesn’t leave him bereft. Dawn threads past the windowsill before he finds it.

 

PART IV  
The palace is silent, and empty as they walk along, the traitor and his guard.

He played in these halls as a child, wandered them at night during lingering spells of insomnia, curled in the thousand niches, slender bookish fingers weighted with dusty tomes and his mind with an untroubled imagination.

For a moment he thinks he spies himself as he was, narrow pale boy, a streak of dark hair and muddy green cloth reflected in the marble pillars, endlessly running after his brother, his keeper, he of the endless laughter and the sparkling eyes. The boy runs past, around a corner, and when he catches up, he sees himself striding, burning with intent, helmet of gold and a sceptre of burnished light.

And then his guards push open the doors to the throne room, letting them fall shut with a hollow clang, dissipating in the sudden silence like the echoes of the past, trapped now only in his mind and in the corridor beyond his reach.  
  
The room is empty, save for three figures at the far end. They seem to recede as he walks closer, like the far mountains of Isilhelm do, the mountains of legend upon which no traveller may tread.

He knows that he walks forward, yet he cannot feel his feet or the polished stone underneath, murmuring with their footfalls. The guards leave him at the foot of the throne, seventeen gleaming stairs between him and what is rightfully his, seventeen stairs and the will of a god, a king and the father of all. _But not my father_.

Odin looks down upon his son, and Loki knows he is supposed to kneel, as Thor did all those years ago when he sought with joy the benediction that could only be earned with pain and loss. Thor kneeled as an imitation of humility, but Loki is honest in his defiance. He is supposed to submit, to cower before the might of the Allfather; he is no longer a treasured son, if he ever was, and now even the lowest citizen is worthier. _Betrayer, liar, death-dealer_.

He doesn’t. Loki remains upright, and squares his shoulders against the glare that bites like a mountain wind.

Odin speaks, carefully, as though he has chosen each word and weighed it. “My son, you have disappointed me.”

Loki wonders if this is supposed to make him feel ashamed; he knows it would destroy Thor as no battle-blow could. He just feels hollowed out, and so the words rattle around without finding purchase.

“You attempted to destroy an entire world, not once but twice. You waged war on an innocent people and conspired with enemies not fit to see the light of day. You sought power at a terrible cost. You have plotted against me and my house, betrayed those you were honour-bound to defend, sat upon a throne that was not yours.”

Thor is standing at Odin’s side, eyes downcast and face unreadable. He jerks his gaze involuntarily at his father when he speaks of betrayal, and a shadow clouds him.

Loki wonders how long this will take.

“Loki…” His tone is conciliatory, as he can afford to be now that he has single-handedly divested Loki of everything - name, family, destiny, power, protection. _You will long for something so sweet_ , and the room goes white before his eyes. With difficulty, he wrenches his focus back; Odin has not noticed. “I had hoped you would be my son just as if you had come from my line. I had hoped that you could work with us to unite two kingdoms and bring peace– ”

Loki’s eyes widen with disbelief and he lets the sarcasm drip from his tongue as he interrupts, “You mean that you had hoped to put me on the throne of Jutenheim as a puppet, ruling under your command and forcing an uneasy peace with fear of your might wielded through me.”

Odin does not change expression, though winter creeps into his voice. “You forget your place. I raised you with nothing but good intentions and trust, and you betrayed that.”

“No, _father_ , you wanted what was best for you. You have never treated me like a son, so why should I act like one?”

He smiles, like a brittle rind of frost.

“Remember, I am a monster; I am the bastard child of your sworn enemy. It is you who forget my place.”

Frigga stands abruptly, shimmering length of cloth and gold. “Enough.”

She turns her gaze to Loki, pleading. “This is not what we wanted for you. I am sorry that it has come to pass.”

She twists her hands together, unconscious emblem of a helpless mother belying the regal timbre of her voice, and despite what Odin has done or not done, she has ever and always treated him like a son. Loki remembers her granting him the sceptre, remembers her simple declaration that he would rule, made with an open face and straightforward pride. He spares a moment to regret that he has caused her so much grief.

“Despite what you may think, Loki, we have only ever wanted your happiness.”

Loki keeps his peace, holds his tongue, for the power of words lies not only in their use but also in their absence.

Odin speaks into the tension. “What is done is done. Loki of Asgard, son of Odin and one-time heir to the throne, I hereby revoke your titles and your honour. I cast you out, nameless. You will serve the rest of your days in exile, in the Lost Realms.”

It is no less than what he was expecting, and yet it feels like so much more.

Odin raises his hand, and guards materialise from the shadows, silent but all the more dangerous for it. He knows that they will escort him to the observatory on the top of the highest tower, bind him with chains and keep their spears poised as the voice of the aged sorcerer stumbles over the spell of banishment. The dark magic will swirl up around him, crackling black and purple, and yank him through to the other side. His last sight of Asgard will be a wrinkled, blind visage surrounded by snow-white hair, the face of a servant merely performing a duty, an old man who sees so far he has lost sight.

He feels the guards close in, feels the manacles click into place around his wrists. Frigga is watching, preternaturally still, though her eyes shine with unshed tears. Odin stares straight ahead, not deigning to grace his would-be son with a farewell glance. And Thor is--

Thor is there, alongside the guards, and they fall back slightly as he steps closer. He closes a hand around Loki’s elbow, and looks towards their king.

“Father, I would be the one to go.”

Odin frowns, fixes his eye on Thor, and Loki can see his thoughts race behind his schooled non-expression.

“Thor, this is not the custom. Exceptions cannot be made.”

Loki feels the hand on his arm tighten, feels bones grind together. He senses more than sees Thor straighten, chin up and body growing denser, more solid. Yet when his brother speaks, his voice is carefully neutral. _He has learned much_.

“This is an exception. This is Loki, your son and one of your heirs, and even if you do not recognise that any longer, he is still a prince, still heir to a throne in his own right. This is my brother, and I would do right by him.”

Odin presses his lips together. “The guards will accompany you both.”

Thor nods, and the pressure on Loki’s arm decreases. Loki forces himself to relax, belatedly realising his own tension, and thinks _I do not need your help_. They turn and leave the room as silent as they entered. Thor still has not looked him in the face; he keeps his eyes straight ahead even though they walk abreast, like they used to do when they were both free men.

The walk to the tower is over far too quickly.

 

PART V  
The sorcerer is meditating, gold bowl of water reflecting the sky. He does not rise as they enter, lips still moving soundlessly over words long dead. The guards are restless, uneasy, as ever most people are in the presence of magic. The sorcerer looks up from his scrying, the water rippling softly. His eyes flick between them, as though he can see, and perhaps he does, in a way. The moist white ovals linger on Loki’s face, and he can feel the questing touch of spell work, a soft feather brush against his inner eye.

The head guard speaks, his tone ostensibly commanding. Loki alone can hear the hollowness of the bluster, how it attempts to cloak mistrust and fear, and fails. He lifts the corner of his mouth into a half-smile - _best not to speak too harshly to one who can kill with a thought, who makes liars of the senses and walks indiscriminately among the stars above and the minds of men_.

“This prisoner is to be banished to the Lost Realms, by the Allfather’s command.”

The half-smile becomes a full one, a bitter one. _Prisoner. Liesmith. Silvertongue_. So many names for who he is, none of them flattering.

The sorcerer nods, a single incline of his head, and silence falls again. Unexpectedly, Thor speaks.

“You may leave us.”

The guards start in surprise. Thor flexes the fingers of his right hand menacingly, and his voice drops to a threatening rumble. “I am a subject of the All-Father just as much as you. You have served him loyally, do you question whether I would do the same?”

They hesitate, weighing Odin’s wrath against Thor’s, and withdraw, clearly deciding that the immediacy of Thor’s is more threatening than the future possibility of Odin’s.

The sorcerer is watching Thor now, and something has shifted in the air.

Thor ignores or is oblivious to it, and instead turns to Loki, meeting his gaze for the first time. “I am sorry, brother, for my part. I never wanted this.” He lets fall the mask he wears for the benefit of Odin and the others, and Loki can see through him, see the broken pieces of his heart, see the wounds they leave.

 _Brother_. Another name, somehow even more painful than the others.

He reaches out a hand, and tentatively clasps Loki’s neck, thumb fitting neatly into the dip underneath his jaw. His hands are warm and calloused, gentle despite the roughness, and Loki can smell metal and musk, tang of salt and ozone. He can feel heat, burning through his wan skin, can feel the intensity of Thor’s gaze, and suddenly he feels an unexpected stab of terror that this may be the last time.

Thor drops his eyes, and his thumb brushes warm over Loki’s skin. He looks up and smiles like it hurts, and Loki can see the pain, see it bleed from the wounds inside, spilling over and down his cheek.

He leans forward, movement barely perceptible, and Loki feels warm breath touch his face. There is a moment of stillness, and the world contracts to Thor’s eyes, Thor’s lips, his own rabbit pulse under Thor’s hand.

Then the moment ends, eternity passing, and Thor clears his throat and steps away. The brand where his hand was still burns, almost surely visible, and Loki cannot look the sorcerer in the face.

Thor turns to the arched window, all of Asgard spread out before him, and his shoulders slump as he exhales. His fingers clench on the stone ledge, and Loki can see the white spread over his knuckles. His voice is soft as he mutters, “Do it.”

The sorcerer is voiceless, but his power crackles just beyond the visible; a sensation more than an image, and Loki fights not to react, not to draw on his own reserves, because this is a banishing spell, this is the most powerful of the old magic, powerful enough to banish one as skilled as he, twice royal and immortal, and if he fights it he will lose. Everyone will lose. Loki can feel the tendrils wrapping around him, spiraling up his body. He knows if he looks down, he will see the floor opening at his feet, see an endless expanse of darkness rent by flashes of unfamiliar lightning. He doesn’t look, he keeps his eyes on his brother’s back, on the brilliant red of his cape. He memorises the fall of the fabric, the slight movement of his shoulders with each breath, the stirring of his hair in the unnatural wind.

Loki watches until his eyes water from holding open, and he licks lips gone suddenly dry, opens them to say -- what? -- and Thor turns sharply as though he had spoken. His face is a battlefield, loss and pain warring with twisted devotion, and as the purple flashes increase with the roaring, Loki watches his heart break.

He feels an answering jagged hole in his own chest, gaping wider than the one at his feet.

 _I need you_.

And then the darkness shrieks upwards and yanks him down.

 

PART VI  
Tales are told of the Lost Realm, bedtime stories for children.

A race of giants lived here before time itself existed, lived and died when Asgard was a molten rock wrapped in a stellar cloud. They built cities of stone, carved temples reaching towards the empty sky, upon which are writ words in a language long forgotten. No one knows what they looked like, or where they came from, or why they left. Their race does not even have a name.

Loki wanders among their streets, still straight and once as smooth as the ones in Asgard. Now they are cracked with faultlines the length of his body, uneven stairs formed by the infinitesimal movements of the earth. The patterns are obscured with weeds and time, long worn down by endless rotations of the planet through space.

He had never been to the Lost Realm before this, no one had. It was never explained, but for all of Asgardian history, no one had traveled here. As he steps over a small canyon wrought in the stone, narrow abyss to the center of the world, he wonders if he is the first to have walked these streets since their creators vanished. The whole world cannot hold the sudden upwelling of loneliness, and he seeks to forget it as quickly as possible. There is no time for longing here, no time for wanting what cannot be had or wishing for things that will not come to pass. _Sentiment_.

Time does not pass here as it does on Asgard.

Here, everything is simultaneously expanded and contracted; he wanders for years under a pallid sun that neither rises or sets, and lies disbelieving under a starless canopy of darkness that outlasts the fall of man.

The next day passes in scarcely an hour, chased by a darkness just as fleeting. After a while, everything begins to bleed together, and Loki gives up and wanders through dead cities and across flat grey plains towards mountains that ever recede.

His magic is dampened here, weighted down with the same sickness that hides the stars and bleaches the sun to a colorless sheen. The first night, he attempted to light a fire for warmth, huddled in the shade of a broken column, and his hands shook as the faintest shreds of flame struggled to catch on the shriveled wood. Panicked, he bolted to his feet and focused all his energy on making a fallen carving levitate, a broken cobblestone vanish, the brittle moss in a collapsed doorway sway with a breath of air.

On Asgard his efforts would have set the whole citadel alight.

The moss moved. Barely a tremble, but there is no wind here, and Loki has sharp eyes. It moved, and then something inside of him snapped through, fell broken to the bottom of his soul and lay there. The moss did not move again, and subsequent attempts left him horribly drained, pale and sweaty, dizzy from the bright spots behind his closed eyelids.

He sat unmoving, for an age.

Dawn spread its feeble rays across the courtyard, and Loki forced himself to follow it, to walk towards the sun as it arched above him, to keep his eyes on the ground and his feet moving forward.

He has lost count of the days, and his mind wanders ever farther afield, seeking escape as his body cannot.

His lips bleed, tongue dry and cracked. His limbs tremble as he forces himself on, unsure of why he keeps walking when he knows that there is nothing to find. He only knows that he cannot stop.

At night, the darkness seems to press into the ground, grow roots there to anchor it, and he is sure that he could reach up a hand and touch it, hanging suffocating overhead. He thinks unwilling of the stars on Asgard, the million billion points of brilliance in an ever-changing sky; the kaleidoscope of color and light. He thinks of his youth, when he would creep out onto the roof to mark their passing, when he would recite their names like a lullaby, and his brother would listen, eyes on him and not the stars.

He closes his eyes against the dark, futile since it is the same whether they are open or not, and pretends that there are stars above him now.

 _I wish you were here_.

 

PART VII  
He is walking through the outskirts of another city, knee-high weeds making a sound like muted ocean waves as he passes through. Up ahead, a fallen column towers over the remains of a road, the fluted sides easily twice his height.

Suddenly, a crushing force, a weight, a _something_ overwhelms his mind, an explosion of pressure that drives him to his knees in the powdery dirt. It takes a moment for him to realise that it is a _sound_. There are no noises on this world save for the ones he makes himself, scrabbling over ruins and rocks. He has not heard anything but the rasp of his own breath and the leaden beat of his heart in centuries.

Loki staggers to his feet, inky strands of hair whipping across his face, and closes his eyes at the almost-forgotten feel of a breeze.

The sky opens up above him, angry roiling cauldron of grey and black. Lightning flashes in the bellies of the clouds, and there is the smell of ozone, of heat. He licks his lips and tastes metal.

The air crackles with power, flashes of blinding light, and he holds his breath for the thunder.

It comes, ear-splitting rumble that vibrates behind his sternum and rocks the ground. He clenches his teeth to stop the rattle, and looks up.

The clouds convulse inwards, gather in a whirlwind, and explode outwards with a flash.

Something hurtles out of their depths and slams into the ground with enough force to leave a shallow crater, to knock him to his knees again.

He stands and moves towards it cautiously, hope and resignation warring for his mind.

The something in the middle stands, unfolds buckled legs and shrugs its shoulders and becomes his brother. Thor is smeared with dirt, scraped bloody from impact and dazed from the fall.

Loki freezes on the edge of the depression.

He sees Thor look around, slightly crouched and Mjolnir at the ready, prepared for anything this realm of mystery will throw at him. Loki represses the swell of hysterical laughter, _There is nothing here, don’t you see? Nothing, and that is worse than everything_.

Thor sees him and runs.

He is shouting something, unintelligible over the roar of the cloudgate above him.

He gets close enough to touch, face level with Loki’s since he stands in the crater and Loki just outside.

“Loki! Loki! Come, we haven’t got much time.”

The words are tossed in the tempest, his hair like stinging needles against his skin. There is too much power here, too much summoning to be stable. The gate will collapse on itself in moments, bleed its excess energy out onto this world, and they cannot be here when that happens.

“Loki! Brother!”

Loki cannot answer; too long with only his thoughts, and he does not remember how to speak.

“We have to go! _Now_!”

Thor looks desperate, looks pleading and lost and so fragile for all his armour and musculature. He holds out a hand, fingernails caked with dirt and ash. Loki grasps it without thinking, eyes flicking to Thor’s, startled and wide.

There is a moment of stillness, as the roar drops away and Loki can hear the pulse in his skull, can feel the warmth of skin underneath his palm. He stares at Thor, at eyes bluer than the sky over Midgard, bluer than he remembers.

And then Thor is pulling, yanking him towards the center of the maelstrom, funnel cloud of dirt and straw and rock. He shoves them through, to the center of comparative calm, and raises his hammer to send them home.

 

PART VIII  
Everything is white.

And then it isn’t. Loki makes out shadows, edges of things too straight to be natural. A buzzing grows in his head, then escalates to a ringing that would deafen the city. He blinks, eyes watering, and the room snaps into focus.

It takes a minute, memory struggling to put a name to the images last seen centuries before, but it comes back in a rush.

This is the tallest tower, the observatory.

He turns an unbelieving circle, noting the wide arched windows glowing golden with the late-morning light, the hunched form of the sorcerer, murmuring dark things into a fold of his robe. He notes the smashed scrying bowl, the puddle of water reflecting the sky; remarks with detachment on the floor beneath his feet, the stone pitted and blackened, loose rubble scattered amongst the delicate instruments. Thor is standing uneasily by the window where he last saw him, as though he expects a fight.

Loki swipes his tongue over his cracked lips, tasting stone dust and ashes, metal and dirt. He tries twice before the words come.

“What… Thor… What have you done?” His voice is a rasp.

Thor sighs, drags a hand through his tangled mop of hair, and Loki notices his knuckles are bleeding.

“I could not-- I tried--” He clears his throat, spits to the side, and gives Loki a rueful look. “I convinced the sorcerer to send me after you, only I did not let him close the portal once I had gone.”

Loki is dumbstruck.

“You could have leveled all of Asgard with that kind of power, Thor. What were you thinking?”

“Obviously I wasn’t.” His smile is hesitant, but genuine. “I realised I could not leave you in exile. I have been there, and while I think that mine was not quite so bad as yours would be--” Loki raises an eyebrow. “--it made no difference. You are my brother and I love you. I could not leave you there.”

Loki straightens, squashing a wince as his shoulders pull, muscles overstretched in their mad flight. He straightens, and fixes a glare that has Thor backing up a step, wary, and his fingers clenching unconsciously upon the handle of Mjolnir.

“You couldn’t leave me there forever, but you could leave me there for a few thousand years? When did your conscience prick you with enough force to tear you away from your flatterers, _brother_?” Teeth clenched, eyes flashing, and then suddenly they narrow, deliberate and shrewd, as he tips his head slightly. “Or was this a game? Did you think I would look to you as a saviour, fall down at your feet and proclaim my everlasting devotion?”

The words fly out of him, loosed after an eternity of muffling silence. His rage is unmatched, and were he not still weakened after his trial, he would best Thor right here and now. He can feel a tingle as his dormant magic returns in a rush, crackling along his nerves and lighting his inner eye with green flame. _I might yet take you on, brother_.

Thor gapes, opens and closes his mouth like a fish, and Loki laughs. “You think you are clever, Thor Odinson, but I will show you your true self - weak, desperate, unfit to rule yourself, let alone a kingdom.” His smile is cruel, widening in bloodlust, and his feet carry him closer to his brother, backing him up against the rough stonework. “Your plan has turned on you, brother dear, and _you_ are the one who will be kneeling.”

Thor finally speaks, barely a step away and something flickering behind his eyes, something that registers even in Loki’s blind mad rage.

“Brother... Loki… I do not understand. You have not been gone an hour.” He gestures feebly to the window, where midday light bathes the delicate pillars of the palace in warm gold. “I scarcely made it to my quarters before I returned here.”

_An hour._

The single pulse of a heartbeat.

Loki staggers backwards, a dull roar between his ears. Distantly he is aware of his brother rushing to his side, the bone-rattling thud of Mjolnir dropping to the floor, the feel of wide strong hands on his back, his neck.

_An hour. An hour here, and there a thousand years._

The roaring increases until he can no longer bear it; squeezing his eyes shut against the pain, he lets the darkness take him.

 

PART IX  
When he wakes, it is still dark, and his breath catches, but it is only the jeweled half-dark of Asgard. Thor is there, standing beside the window and brooding as he does.

He watches the stars without seeing, fingers tracing meaningless patterns on the stone. Loki watches, appreciating the comfort of the fur-draped bed beneath him; the warmth that has long been stolen from his bones returned like a cat to the hearth. He remains still, noting the lack of restraints, and guesses from the generic finery and dusty canopy that they are in one of the tower rooms sporadically used for guests.

Thor speaks, eyes still on the stars. “I did not know, brother. I swear it. I would never have let Father banish you had I known.”

Loki does not speak.

Thor continues, “I am truly sorry.” His shoulders are tense under the weight of his words, the weight of others still unsaid. _I am sorry that it has come to this, that we now stand on opposite sides._

Loki stretches under the furs, and Thor turns at the soft whisper of cloth and skin. He takes a step towards the bed, and then stops, hands clenching uncertainly at his sides. The shadow on the bed laughs disbelievingly, and narrow hands shove back the coverings.

“Are you really going to play at restraint now?” The words are mocking, and still Thor stands rooted. “After all of this time, and all of the things we have done - all of the things _you_ have done - now you hesitate?”

Loki sits up, eyes glittering in the dark. “Or is it that you fear me?”

He feints forward, and Thor tenses but does not move. Loki smiles, cruelly, “Now that we are on equal footing, with no iron bars or spells to keep me down, no guards around the corner, now you show yourself for what you really are. A coward, truly, brother.” The last word is spat from between clenched teeth, and it hits Thor like a fist.

Loki is still smirking when Thor barrels across the room and pins him to the bed.

He grips Loki’s wrists in his hands, pins them to either side of his head, and presses his weight down, feeling the faint protest of bones and muscle underneath.

Thor meets the challenge in Loki’s gaze, lowers his head until their foreheads touch, whispers, “Never. Never could I fear you.” His lips brush Loki’s as he speaks, and he crushes their lips together to keep the words there between them.

Thor waits until Loki is undone before he releases his hands, waits until Loki’s heart hammers at double speed and his breath comes short, his back arches and his eyes flutter closed, until his wrists are stained black and blue with finger marks and his silver tongue reduced to half-formed pleas.

Loki winds his freed fingers in Thor’s tangled hair, tugs on the golden strands as Thor traces the edges of his body with a warm wet tongue. To be touched, after so many centuries alone, to be held and kissed and clutched, no matter how harshly, is a revelation, and Thor kisses the salty tears from Loki’s temples, spreads his hands over the pale skin beneath him, and murmurs his brother’s name over and over.

He takes Loki on his back, for the first time, and Loki sees the naked surprise in his face when there is no resistance, when Loki instead tugs him closer, wraps his legs around Thor’s hips and arches his own to meet.

They move as slowly as they can, but the need is too raw, too immediate, and Thor is frenzied, gripping the headboard strong enough to splinter it and Loki’s hip hard enough to bruise. He mouths over the rabbit pulse in Loki’s neck, teeth worrying at the hollow there, and Loki tips his head back with a moan.

It is over too quickly, and they lie spent and panting, in the wreck of the furs.

Thor’s breath is even, the sweat dry on his chest, before he speaks, long after Loki assumed he slept.

“You know you cannot stay.” The words fall between them, and remain like an unwanted guest. Loki turns to study the ceiling, invisible above them, and answers. “I know.”

After a pause, Thor asks, “Where will you go?” Loki hears the words he does not say, and answers them instead.

“Nowhere that will please you.”

Thor turns to him, reaches out a hand and wraps it around his hip. Loki turns away, curling in on himself, but Thor follows stubbornly, fitting his broad chest to Loki’s back and wrapping his heavy arms around the narrow frame in front of him.

Loki lets him.

They fall into an uneasy sleep, and several times during the night, Loki wakes to Thor’s mouth on his neck, Thor’s fingers in his tangled hair, and the gestures are oddly soothing. Each time, Loki closes his eyes and pretends that it will last.

 

PART X  
Thor wakes to sunlight and warmth, dust motes swirling in the golden air streaming through the arched window.

The bed is wide, and rumpled. Empty. He touches the place where Loki lay, grips the blanket in one fist. He closes his eyes and inhales, searching for the fading scent Loki left behind, clinging to the sheets and to Thor’s skin like a lover.

He stays until he must arise, must tend to the duties that never rest and shoulder the responsibility that never lightens. He stays for a moment longer, and pretends that this was not the last time.

 

EPILOGUE  
The throne room is cold, but Loki does not notice. The ceiling arches so high it disappears into the same darkness that seeps from the distant recesses of the hall and creeps from behind the black columns.

The king regards him shrewdly, bony fingers tapping a soundless rhythm against the polished ebony of his throne, carved like bulging and twisted tree roots.

Loki waits, and finally the king speaks. “Many there are who have warned me against an alliance with you, Trickster. They tell me that you betray everyone in the end, that your only loyalty is to yourself.”

Loki permits himself a half-smile. “They do not lie. I work for my own ends, my own desires.” He takes a step or two closer, spreads his narrow hands ingratiatingly. “But who in this universe does not? The only difference is, I admit it freely.”

The king twists his mouth into what might be termed a smile. “And they call you the god of lies.”

Loki grins back. “The truth is the biggest lie of them all. I hold up a mirror, and show them what they truly are. And they hate me for it.”

The king leans back, his fingers stilling their restless rhythm. “Will you drive me to do the same? Will you betray me as well?”

His question does not need an answer; one is written on Loki’s face and manner and history. _Of course. Given the time and the opportunity, I will betray everyone. It is my nature._ Instead, Loki offers, “For the moment, your goals and mine are the same. Until that changes, I will aid you to the best of my power.”

“And what are your goals?” The king begins his tapping again, slower. Loki smiles slowly.

“I seek the destruction of Odin and his house. I would see the Realm Eternal brought to its knees, headless. I would sit on the throne of Asgard as is my right.”

He clasps his hands gently behind his back, unconsciously stroking his fingers over the edges of the blades concealed there.

“And once the All-Father is dead and the throne is mine, you and your armies shall be loosed to enjoy the…” he tilts his head, considering, “… _hospitality_ of the people. I’m sure they will be most welcoming.”

The king lets the words sink into silence while he ponders. It is just for show; his answer has been decided and Loki knows it. Now it is just a matter of time.

Night is falling outside the walls, and the king’s teeth gleam in the fading light. “We are agreed. You will show me the way in - suitable for my army of thousands - and kill Odin. Once the head is severed, we will storm the palace and finish the body.”

Loki nods fractionally. “You will meet much resistance. The armies of Asgard are feared throughout the Realms.”

The king waves a hand. “As mine would be, did any know of their existence. But wars are not always won by reputation and noble deeds. Secrecy is a more powerful weapon than might.”

Loki answers, “I look forward to seeing you proved correct.” He bows slightly, and turns to leave, the floor echoing under his boots.

Halfway to the massive doors, he stops and turns, addresses the king who from this distance seems to fade into the darkness. Seemingly as an afterthought, he calls, “Oh, and one more thing. When your armies take the citadel, they may kill whomever they please, save for one.”

The king raises an eyebrow. “And who has earned themselves this honour?”

“Thor. My brother.” The words leave an iron taste behind.

The king narrows his eyes. “You will kill him yourself? Your own flesh and blood?”

Loki smirks. “He is not my blood, and his deeds have proven that he is not my brother.”

“He is mine.”

Loki turns for the doors almost before the king nods his acquiescence. His strides eat up the distance, and the doors close behind him with an echoing boom.

Outside, the stars shine dimly behind the clouds, the brightness of Yggdrasil evident even on this barren world. Loki strides away, eyes on the path ahead of him and blind to all else.

_Thor is mine._


End file.
